Certain classes of piperazine compounds are known to be useful for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, including arrhythmias, angina, myocardial infarction, and related diseases such as intermittent claudication. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,567,264 discloses a class of substituted piperazine compounds that includes a compound known as ranolazine, (±)-N-(2,6-dimethylphenyl)-4-[2-hydroxy-3-(2-methoxyphenoxy)-propyl]-1-piperazineacetamide (Ranexa™), and its pharmaceutically acceptable salts, and their use in the above disease states.
Despite the desirable properties demonstrated by ranolazine, which is a very effective cardiac therapeutic agent, believed to function as a fatty acid oxidation inhibitor, there remains a need for compounds that have similar therapeutic properties to ranolazine, but are more potent and have a longer half-life.